Mills & Boon categories are conveniently separated by colour. The more sexually explicit material has a sexually explicit picture on a cover adorned with red, the international colour of explicit sexual material. Modern Romance is symbolised by blue, because blue is classy, emotionally sterile and modern. Our newfound favourite subgenre is Romance Romance, also known by a series of less powerful monikers including Tender Romance and Special Moments. These books have an innocent picture of two adults innocently cavorting with an adorable child on a orange cover, because nothing speaks of romance without explicit sexual content like the colour orange.
The Dad Next Door tells the story of a thirty-something single dad, abandoned by his wife when their twin girls were one-year-olds. Marianne, a traditional name for an evil woman, disappeared and has not been heard from since. Life for the single dad, Gavin Gray, hasn't brightened either. From two kids he is down to one, Tory, an insolent, uncommunicative tyke without opinions or forthrightness. Her sister, Samantha, was the outgoing, strong-willed one, so outgoing in fact, she ran into a street one day and was hit by a motorcycle. Gavin is tired and disconsolate, but still rather handsome, with broad shoulders and John F. Kennedy's gait. Shortly after Samantha's death he ups sticks and moves to small town New Hampshire into the house his wife grew up in, a decision the author, CJ Carmichael, manages to make sound more curious than creepy. To add to the glamour of the location the book is set on Squam Lake, the very golden pond Henry Fonda and Katherine Hepburn filmed On Golden Pond on. The American Film Institute's twenty-second best romantic film is surely the most glamorous movie ever made about geriatric loving, irresponsible parenting and fear of dying.
Meanwhile, back in the novel, we meet the cute and loveable Alison Bennett, a single business owner with only happiness in her manner. She takes an immediate interest in the strapping hunk of grief moving in next door and can't help but note the adorability of his daughter. However, we soon learn Alison comes with her own forlorn hopelessness. She receives an order of wedding invitations she forgot to cancel, having cancelled everything else romance-related with her ex-fiance, Tyler Jenkins. Now just a sad, lonely woman with nothing to do in the evenings except be alone, her telephone rings and who's on the other end? Her father, wishing her a happy birthday.
My word, book. How did you get published? What is more, we're only three chapters in. Bring on the terminal illness and dog who has seen better days. It makes for an inauspicious beginning when to up the ante the author decides to kill a child, and to add insult to death the accident, as Gavin wants it to be known, seems a superfluous tragedy to base the narrative around. There is plenty going on with this family without the need to make the cause so obvious and peripheral. We will learn more of the incident and its effect on the characters in due course, as Alison gently tugs on the string holding Gavin's existence together. Clearly he and Tory have not moved on from losing Sam, as a father and a twin sister are supposed to. While Alison has moved on from her broken engagement from Tyler, her divorced and lonesome parents do not believe she has made the right decision. In the small town tongues wag and Alison needs a new man in her life to quell speculation as much as Tory needs a mother figure and Gavin needs a supportive, loving woman. But good golly, that's surely too much to ask. If only there was some way to neatly fit these carefully constructed pieces into one puzzle.
While Bewildered Heart continually criticises the problematic nature of Modern, Sensual Romance, Blaze! and Modern Heat, for their inherent lack of depth to story and characters, even the most cynical critic cannot fault The Dad Next Door, which dishes out the neuroses and tragedies as if the author has something to prove to the reader. This overwhelming heartache will make the coupling of Gavin and Alison, because that is happening, all the more satisfying, as this union will solve every problem for every character and every character has a serious problem that only love will solve. Hurrah for the healing power of love!
Credit therefore to CJ Carmichael. Well done, her, so far. Nevertheless, with all this additional sorrow piled upon a simple tale of love the writing becomes a delicate balancing act of haunted emotion and story progression. Alison is an old school-friend of Marianne, and the revelation of her being Gavin's former flame must have an effect on the burgeoning relationship, meaning Carmichael will have to introduce Marianne and even Tyler now they've been pointedly referenced, their force over our leads abundantly apparent.
Never before in my Mills & Boon reading has a story begun with so many broken lives, with so many characters living in lonely despair, regretting life choices and reluctant to be hurt once more, in a world where everyone gets hurt and nothing good comes easily. This isn't to say The Dad Next Door is a successful book, of course, the prose style has forced contrivances and heavy-handed emotional footnotes, leaving no room for subtlety, and yet it is these faults that feel more in-keeping with the Harlequin modus operandi. There is plenty of opportunity for subtext, yet a stern refusal to leave certain things unsaid. When a character stops short of saying how they really feel, the narrator helpfully jumps in, to press home the unspoken bond between Gavin and Alison. This is a shame, but perhaps an inevitable one.
There remains a missed opportunity in back-dating the tragedy. After all, who wants to read a book in which all the interesting, dramatic things have already happened? The Dad Next Door ends up revolving around the renovation of a house, a handy metaphor, but a didactic and clichéd one. We, the gentle readers, continue on regardless awaiting the arrival of Marianne with all her baggage. There is an obstacle in the way of romance here greater than Gavin and Alison's thought processes and hang-ups. Marianne represents the author's first obvious concern when introducing a child into their Mills & Boon world. What happened to the missing parent? And of course, what about the child? How does the kid figure into the plans of the adults? Presently, Tory is a minor nuisance, with an issue Alison immediately fixes through the clever skill of offering companionship. Therefore the daughter becomes what children are in real life, a sign that their single father is sensitive and charming.
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